


Stubbornness in the Face of Fate

by jujubiest



Series: Destiny [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Normal Life, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Dean is a stubborn little shit who doesn't know what he wants, Dean's POV, John Winchester Mentioned - Freeform, M/M, Mary Winchester mentioned - Freeform, Nobody bats an eye at same-gender soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Timers, The Winchester family is happy and healthy and loving, anna milton mentioned - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-26
Updated: 2016-04-26
Packaged: 2018-06-04 17:13:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6667384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jujubiest/pseuds/jujubiest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The problem with meeting your soul mate when you’re twelve years old is that you still have a lot of growing up and rebelling to do. And what brings out rebellion more than ultimatums handed down by destiny?</p><p>(Previously a one-shot titled "Destiny," now part of a series of that same name.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stubbornness in the Face of Fate

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [If a clock could count down to the moment you meet your soul mate, would you want to know?](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/192958) by illness-and-instruments. 



> Adapted from this post: http://jujubiest.tumblr.com/post/72200403556/winjennster-fangirlbydaybloggerbynight

The problem with meeting your soul mate when you’re twelve years old is that you still have a lot of growing up and rebelling to do, and what brings out rebellion more than ultimatums handed down by destiny?

Dean's clock was always short. It worried his parents at first, but the counselor they tried to send him to assured them that it was perfectly normal; some people found their soulmates in grade school, while others didn't find them until well into adulthood, and in both cases it always worked out for the best in the end. How could it not? It was destiny.

Destiny was, as far as Dean was concerned, just one more thing telling him what he could and couldn't do.

"What if I don't like 'em?" He used to whine to his mom. "What if they're a total jerk or we have nothing in common? What if I like someone else better? What if they _smell_?" 

It didn't matter how many times his mom and dad tried to explain that none of those things would happen. It didn't matter how often they reminded him that this person would be the one literally _born_ to make him happy. He hated the idea that one of the most important decisions of his life had been made for him, by some unseen force that no one could ever explain to his total satisfaction.

Where did the numbers come from? Nobody seemed to know. They just were.

None of it seemed to bother his brother Sam at all, but then Sam had a clock with a normal amount of time on it: eighteen years, three months, two weeks, five days. He'd probably be off at college by then, meeting the person of his dreams on move-in day, or at orientation. And Dean would be happy for him, he supposed.

"It's just...how do you know you actually  _love_ them?" He burst out one night, tossing aside his comic book. The hero had just met his soulmate. "What if you just want so bad to love 'em because the numbers say you should?"

Sam shifted uncomfortably, looking up from his own book with a furrowed brow.

"You just...do, okay? It just works. It's normal, Dean."

There was an edge to his voice, just the slightest emphasis on the word "normal" that made Dean's stomach turn. He  _wasn't_ normal for worrying about this so much, was that it? He was just supposed to play along without asking questions?

He didn't think he could do that.

* * *

Dean's clock ran out on the first day of sixth grade. The last one ticked down to a zero just as the boy in front of him turned around and fixed him with a pair of bright blue eyes and a shy, sweet smile. But Dean was stubborn, so he ignored the way something in his chest felt like doing cartwheels, and decided that he would never love this boy as long as he lived. He wouldn't even  _like_ him.

But then he saw how the boy's expression fell as he took in Dean's hostile posture, and he relented a little. _I'll be his friend,_ he conceded. He looked like a nice enough kid, and it wasn't his fault they were all being toyed with by destiny (or his fault he happened to get saddled with the one person who didn't want to play).

But no one and _nothing_ would ever convince Dean to think of him as more than that.

But the kid--Castiel, he said, and flushed, and apologized for his parents being weirdos--didn't try to talk Dean into more than friendship. He never brought up the line of zeroes on both their wrists or what they were supposed to mean at all. He just...stepped into Dean's life, simple as you please. Being around him was easy, Dean found, because he was the one person who didn't seem to care that Dean wasn't playing his part...the one person who never asked him why. Pretty soon, he was around all the time.

They sat together in class, partnered together on every project.

They ate lunch together, spent their breaks together...by the time they started seventh grade, Cas--Dean called him Cas for short, which he seemed to like--was a fixture at the Winchester house. Dean's mom and dad loved him, although his mom immediately decided he was too skinny and set to work trying to feed him to death. Luckily, Cas could eat a  _lot_ for a guy so small.

The two of them were inseparable through all of middle school and high school, through sports (Dean) and school plays (Cas and Sam) and summers spent running around in the woods and working part-time together in Dean's dad's auto shop. And not once, not in nearly seven years, did Cas ever bring up the clocks.

* * *

It was the night before their high school graduation. The air was unusually hot and muggy for this early in the year, and Dean and Cas had retreated from the stifling inside of the un-air-conditioned house to lay in the grass outside, where they could at least get a bit of a breeze. They were each lying on their backs, heads together and feet stuck out in opposite directions, a soda in one hand, the mirror of one another. Cas was mumbling constellations to himself under his breath, and Dean turned his head to look at him.

He took in the familiar lines of his face, less round and soft than they used to be but still strangely...graceful, in a way. He suppressed a grin at the dark, unruly mess of Cas's hair, and the way his skin was already darkening after just a couple of weeks of watery sunlight, making his eyes stand out even more brilliantly blue than usual.

"What're you grinning at?" Cas asked, eyes never stopping their scan of the sky.

"A horse's ass," Dean said back, grin widening. Cas huffed a laugh and shook his head.

"You're ridiculous."

"I know," Dean said softly. Then, before the silence could lengthen and rob him of his courage, he continued. "You're my best friend, Cas. You know that, right?"

Cas turned, brow furrowed in confusion.

"Of course I know that. Are you just figuring it out?"

Dean rolled his eyes.

"C'mon man, don't be a jackass. You know this stuff's not easy for me."

Cas rolled over on his stomach. The motion brought them shoulder-to-shoulder, and Dean leaned into the contact without consciously deciding to do so. It felt nice, in spite of the heat.

"I've never said anything," Cas started, and Dean tensed, but didn't move or say anything to stop him. "Because I knew you didn't believe in it. Or want to...I don't know. But...that doesn't mean I--"

His words sputtered to a stop, and he focused on the grass beneath his elbows. Dean turned to him, his own eyes wide with a realization that was both terrifying and exhilarating. How had he never considered it before?

"Cas? Hey, look at me." Cas did, with obvious reluctance, dragging his eyes away from the grass to fix resolutely somewhere in the vicinity of Dean's chin.

"It's not--" he started, then thought better of it, and tried again. "I don't--I mean, we--"

Dean leaned forward and pressed his lips to Cas's babbling mouth, which went still for half a second and then pressed wonderfully, immediately back, a noise of half-desperate, excited confusion escaping him as Dean reached out and pulled him in by the collar of his shirt with both hands.

They lay there in the grass like that, Cas half on top of him, kissing in the stifling early-evening heat. Dean's mind was a haze, every nerve in his body buzzing, every place Cas touched him on fire in the best way possible.

It took several minutes, when they finally parted for air, for his mind to come back to the here-and-now...but unfortunately, it did happen. And the events of the last few minutes--the last seven  _years,_ if he was being honest--crystallized into a frightening reality.

"I've fought this all my life," he murmured, not really looking Cas in the eye. He didn't have to, though, to feel it. He knew Cas too well by now, could sense the fragile shine of his eyes and the tense set of his shoulders without confirming with sight. He knew.

Dean sat up, and Cas moved away from him. Every part of Dean felt cold, in spite of the weather.

"I'm sorry," he said, looking down at where the soles of his shoes disappeared in the overgrown grass. "I'm sorry, Cas...I just...I  _can't._ "

When Cas spoke, his voice sounded strangely deep and gruff, and there was a note of defeat in it that made Dean squeeze his eyes shut.

"It's okay, Dean." It wasn't.

He focused on the whistle of the breeze through the leaves. He focused on the blood pounding in his ears, the sound of his breath whispering in and out. He focused on anything but the sound of Cas getting up and walking away from him.

* * *

It happened sometimes, for one reason or another. One partner was a rebel, or someone died before their clock ran out (more evidence, in Dean's opinion, that this whole thing was a bad joke). Both were rare, but they did happen.

And the worst part was that the clock wouldn't restart and try again; it just stayed there, that line of zeroes a constant reminder that one of your life's big questions already had a final, terrible answer. For Dean, that would have once felt like freedom. But for the ones who were alone, who still believed the clocks were the only right answer? It must feel awful, like defeat. Like staring at a hopeless and endless loneliness.

Zero second chances.

Dean wondered, years later, as he sat across from his erstwhile soulmate in their little home town's only reputable restaurant, surrounded by their old high school crowd and all laughing and chattering about the good old days. He wondered if that was what it felt like for Cas. Did he look at the clock on his wrist every morning and feel a hollow place in the center of his chest, where his heart should be ticking away the time they had together? _Does he hate me,_ Dean thought.  _For walking away from our destiny?_

It had been twenty years since Dean had made that choice. Fifteen since he'd been  back home for more than a day or two at a time. Seven since he'd laid eyes on Cas. And now, he looked across the table at Cas, laughing at some absurd thing Anna Milton was saying, and realized all that time and distance hadn't made any difference at all in the way he felt.

 _Did I make a mistake?_ He wonders.  _If I try and start something between us now, is it because of him and me?_

Dean didn't know, and quite abruptly decided he didn't care. He caught Cas's eye and jerked his head toward the door. Cas just _looked_ at him for a second, like he was trying to read something indecipherable. Then he nodded, and Dean stood up and headed straight for the door without looking back. He didn't have to check to know Cas was following him.

Destiny didn't give second chances. But if Dean was very, _very_ lucky, Cas would.


End file.
